3 replies to this topic

[Jens]

Hi everyone,

I have always wondered how the eyes of some of the Disney characters in Disneyland are made? The performers obviously can see a clear view of the enviroment, but outside you can not see into the head. Take Donald Duck's eyes for example:

Click here for photo

I've done som research, and the closest I got to this was the "one-view mirror" technique. I found some info here), and here is the info for people that do not want to go to that page:

So why doesn't the "criminal suspect" see the detectives in the next room? The answer lies in the lighting of the two rooms. The room in which the glass looks like a mirror is kept very brightly lit, so that there is plenty of light to reflect back from the mirror's surface. The other room, in which the glass looks like a window, is kept dark, so there is very little light to transmit through the glass. On the criminal's side, the criminal sees his own reflection. On the detectives' side, the large amount of light coming from the criminal's side is what they see.

I'm not sure if this IS the technique, as it also says:

If the lights in the room with the mirror are suddenly turned out, or the lights in the observation room suddenly turned on, then the one-way mirror becomes a window, with people in each room able to see those in the other. You can see this effect in any mirrored office building at night -- if the light is on in an office, you can see into the office just fine.

Meaning that people would see the person inside on night shifts? I don't think that is the case with the Disney Characters. Also, if someone takes a flash photo of the character in daylight you would also see the person when using this technique, no?

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks ahead!

Jens

[Reactor drone]

A lot of the time the heads are arranged so that the performer is looking out through the mouth so the eyes can just be blanked off.

If the pupils in the donald photo are what the performer is looking through they could just be smoke tinted plastic.With the inside of the head much darker than the outside the reflections off the surface are much stronger than any relected light from objects inside the head making it a fairly effective one way system.

Flash shouldn't make the interior visible,if anything it would make the inside harder to see but shining a bright light in through one eye with a darker exterior(evening or night) would allow the inside to be seen.

[Jens]

Thanks for the reply!

I know for sure that Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Pluto look through the black pupils of their eyes. Goofy looks through his mouth... I asked a cast member once and they said the eyes were made of transparent plastic with a thin layer of some sort of fiber foil on it... Not sure if this is true!

So, does anybody know what the official term of this material (or a similar material) is, so I can look for it?

Thanks ahead!

Edited by Jens, 05 February 2008 - 12:34 AM.

[Metanoia]

fur suit, kigurumi and anime gao use similar techniques

usually mesh painted black, or window tinting, or a cut out part or other techniques... each manufacturer has their own preferences.